“3D Human Brain models in Microfluidics for the Study of Neurological Disorders”

With hundreds of billions of neurons and thousands of trillions of synaptic connections between them, the human brain is the most complex system on earth. However, there are no well-developed human brain models to study the brain activities in either laboratory environments or in animal bodies. Here, I present micro-scaled 3D environments that reconstruct a 3D human brain in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by recapitulating AD signature of elevated levels of amyloid-beta (A-beta), tau proteins, activation of microglia, immune cells resident in a central nervous system (CNS), and consequent neuronal damage. In particular, the model mirrored microglial neurotoxic activities such as axonal cleavage and neurotoxic release.

Lunch will be provided at the beginning of the seminar.